With coaching assistance from Mr. Pondiraj, a local retired Volleyball player and continued enthusiast, as well as support from two other local coaches, the students came out to the ground every morning at 6:45 ready to work hard. Ranging in age from 11 to 18 years, all the students spent their time at camp working on everything from basic skills like setting, bumping, and serving, to learning attacking, blocking and even some basic Volleyball theory.
Not having much idea initially how the camp was going to go I only prepared myself to go in with an open mind and hoped to have some fun, and fun I absolutely did have.
Though I have only a minimal amount of volleyball experience was able to provide some assistance in the area of fitness and flexibility as well as helping the girls to get excited about being active. I helped to not only educate the players about the importance of stretching for injury prevention, but also hope that the coaches will continue to place value of this time served.
Having spent most of my time with the female players we not only worked hard on our volleyball skills, but also burned countless calories laughing and being silly. The girls were clearly excited to have a strong female role model to look up to and I was excited to have such enthusiastic and fun-loving players. It was wonderful to see how much they improved with each day because they came ready to learn and play.
Growing up with an extremely competitive older brother has ensured that all my life I have participated in sports. So many times I have been the only girl or one of the only girls playing with the boys and to me it was normal but for some girls this can be intimidating. It is because of my desire to keep up with the boys I have always had to work that much harder and be that much stronger. However difficult it was at times being singled out for being a girl, it taught me the importance of not being afraid to compete even when social stigma is against you. If there is social stigma against female athletes in the United States, the level of discrimination against women athletes in India is 100 fold. The young female athletes were being pushed aside, given a fraction of the coaching attention and practice time so I decided to take the opportunity to be a strong female role model for the players. The girls immediately responded. They were not only excited to have an American coach working with them on their volleyball skills but they had a lot of fun sitting and talking with me about everything from family and fashion to Tamil movie heroes.
I hope that in the short amount of time I spent with these girls I have inspired them to want to be better and stronger athletes. I hope I have shown them that it’s okay to get sweaty and dirty and play with the boys, and I hope I have shown them that female athletes can be just as strong (if not stronger) than their male counterparts. Most of all, I hope I have shown the men that women can be great players too.
